


my heart still thumps as i bleed

by 0sighnomore0



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Dark, Eating Disorders, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, Trigger Warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-17 18:18:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10599519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0sighnomore0/pseuds/0sighnomore0
Summary: Bruce takes his parents death harder than is expected."He can't eat. He looks in the mirror and his face is gaunt. He can count his ribs and see the knobs of his spine. Simple things like stairs exhaust him, and he spends most of his days curled up on his bed, buried under a mountain of covers."TW: Self-Harm, Attempted Suicide, Hospitals, Anorexia





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song "Tessellate" by alt-j
> 
> Just a drabble. I'm on tumblr as egh1999, where this is also posted.
> 
> PLEASE READ THE TRIGGER WARNINGS LISTED IN THE SUMMARY!!!

Bruce’s hands are still slick with his parents’ blood when they wrap him in a blanket and left him on the stairs.

 

Still stained scarlet when Jim Gordon approaches him.

 

(Even after Alfred sees, and immediately draws him up a hot bath, even after he's scrubbed at his skin until it's raw, he still feels the blood drying on his hands)

 

(He wonders if he'll ever be able to get away from the feeling)

 

The cutting starts that night, a long line drawn up inside his inner thigh with his father’s razor. Blood that is not his parents’ wells up, deep maroon, blossoming in the hot water like a flower. 

 

Soon, the lines are everywhere that his clothing can hide. And even though Alfred sees, he doesn't know what to do, so he yells instead. Calls Bruce a stupid boy, and tells him  he's going to really hurt himself one day, in a way that can't be bandaged up.

 

(He's already hurt. What's one more slice of pain when his heart is ripped to shreds?)

 

He can't eat. He looks in the mirror and his face is gaunt. He can count his ribs and see the knobs of his spine. Simple things like stairs exhaust him, and he spends most of his days curled up on his bed, buried under a mountain of covers.

 

(Deep down, he knows he's killing himself. Deeper still, he doesn't care)

 

Alfred is pissed and scared, but Bruce sleeps too often to notice. 

 

(Lately, he can't make himself care about anything. His clothes swim on his skeletal frame, and he's so cold. Always so cold.)

 

\---------------------------

 

The day he ends up in the hospital is the day he passes out in front of a board of directors. He hadn't meant to, but he'd seen his parents in a photo, and then the world had gone soft around the edges. It had felt like a good idea to lay down for a little while. He had slumped back, Alfred catching him with a shout, and the next thing he knew, he was  strapped to a hospital bed, IVs and wires crisscrossing his skin, piercing his fragile exterior. The doctors feed him through a tube, and he gets a saline drip.

 

He begs them to let him die. It would be so much easier to sleep.

 

(He had to laugh at the similarities to Shakespeare. To sleep, perchance, to dream…)

 

He wakes up screaming, another vision of his parents’ rotting corpses reaching out for him jerking him into lucidity.

 

Sometimes, when it's dark and he's alone, he closes his eyes and wishes that the man in the mask had shot him, too. At least then he wouldn't have to bear the pain. Alfred sighs at the sight of him, strapped down so he won't hurt himself. Bruce knows that his gaze is vacant and dull, and his hair limply hangs in front of his face. 

 

“You have to stop this,” the man pleads. “Your parents wouldn't want this.”

 

He squeezes Bruce’s thin hand.

 

“Just remember that there are still people who care about you, Master Wayne.”

 

\---------------------------

 

Selina is there when he wakes up.

 

She looks beautiful and dangerous as always, like a poisonous flower.

 

“Jesus, kid. What're you doing?”

 

“Dying.”  Bruce replies, the first words he's said since they brought him here.

 

“That's idiotic.”

 

“It’s easy.”

 

And wasn't that terrifying, just how easy it was to give up. To simply... stop.

 

“Alfred will be upset.”

 

“He'll get over it.”

 

“Your parents would be angry, wouldn't they?”

 

Bruce smiles bitterly.

 

“If they were here, you mean,” he says. “Which they aren't.”

 

She bites her lip, and she feels so far away, even though it's a distance of only a handful of feet.

 

“I don't want you to die,” she whispers.

 

She steps closer to the bed, before crawling in with him. She's so warm, her skin pressed against his. She rests her head on his chest. His eyelids grow heavy, too heavy, and he slips back under, to the deep relief that only dreamless sleep can bring.

\---------------------------

There are still hard days. Days where he wants to curl up under the covers and never wake up.

 

But she makes it better.

 

And it's enough. 

 

fin.


End file.
